


The Mystic and His Handler

by SouthernContinentSkies



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Family Dynamics, Gen, Growing Up, Insecurity, Kidfic, at first, familiarity, fluff to start, implied references to canonical depression, small comforts, with a twist of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:53:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24851113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernContinentSkies/pseuds/SouthernContinentSkies
Summary: Three times Ivan read Gregor very well, and one time he didn't.
Relationships: Gregor Vorbarra & Ivan Vorpatril
Comments: 22
Kudos: 83





	The Mystic and His Handler

Gregor was seven, and Ivan was two. 

On a grey, rainy day in early autumn, Lady Alys arrived at the Residence for a meeting with the Regent Consort, with her son in tow. After the obligatory round of excited burbles with Cordelia, the toddler was packed off to the Residence nursery, allowing the adults to discuss the implications of typical Vor alimony agreements without fielding a series of broken questions about why there were flowers painted on the walls, and whether Ivan could eat them.

When Lady Alys deposited Ivan in the nursery, Gregor said hello to both of them, very politely, and then turned back to his book. He had been enjoying the opportunity to get through it without interruptions, for once; Miles was back in ImpMil for another procedure, so before Ivan’s arrival, Gregor had been alone. (Except for the nursemaids. And the armsmen. But Gregor mostly ignored them. They were all very proper all the time, and none of them were Droushie.)

At first, his little cousin was content to leave him be. For the first several minutes, Ivan’s most pressing worry was his mother’s absence, from which he was distracted only by the concerted efforts of one of the nursemaids, and the tactical application of a soft and brightly-colored stuffed cat. Soon enough, he was settled down on the padded play mat, happily supplying a stream of inscrutable dialogue between the cat, a similarly-constructed monkey, and an animatronic dog that moved its head and barked when you petted it. When Gregor looked over a few minutes later, the four of them were sitting in a circle with the nursemaid, and they appeared to be having imaginary tea.

Eventually, however, the tea party wound to a conclusion, and the various other delights of the Residence nursery had all been thoroughly explored, or at least to the limits of a two-year-old with less than three feet of height and limited command of his fine motor skills. Some children were content to play alone for hours, even when company was on offer, but Ivan was apparently not one of them. Once the novelty of the various blocks and books and toy animals had worn off, he turned his attention to the boy by the window.

Gregor had been alternating between reading his book and simply staring out at the garden. The story was interesting enough: a highly bowdlerized version of an ancient Barrayaran campaign, long on chivalry and heroism, and very short on actual blood and death. Even with that enticement, and the unusual lack of yelling in the background, Gregor found he couldn’t concentrate. His mind slipped off the words and back onto the windowpane, just like the raindrops.

It was during one of these distracted spells that he felt something bump his knee. It was Ivan, handing him the stuffed cat.

“Hi!” the two-year-old said brightly. “Play cats?” His “t” was more of a pause than a crisp stop, but he was perfectly intelligible to someone who spent much of his time parsing another toddler’s developing speech patterns.

“Thank you, Ivan,” Gregor said politely, taking the cat from Ivan, who had practically dumped it into his older cousin’s lap. It didn’t have any of Steggy’s animatronic pieces, but it was all the softer for it, and very squishable. “I don’t actually need this, though; see, I’ve got my book instead.” And he held up the large-print paperback for Ivan’s inspection.

“Book!” said Ivan, pointing.

“That’s right,” said Gregor. “So thanks for the cat, Ivan, it’s very nice, but you can have it back now, if you like.”

Ivan stared for a minute, but then made grabby hands at the stuffed cat again. Gregor obligingly handed it over, and Ivan toddled off with it back to the play mat, leaving Gregor to his book, and the rain.

A few minutes later, his knee was bumped again.

It was Ivan, of course, bringing another offering. This time, it was one of the round-cornered picture books, suitable for someone Miles’ age, that were usually stacked neatly on one of the low shelves along the wall. They weren’t any longer; Ivan had evidently taken some care in his selection, and the discards from that process were now strewn about that corner of the room.

Gregor had been too old for any of those books by the time they appeared in the nursery with the Vorkosigans, but he recognized this particular one anyway. It was about a series of animals, of varying numbers and colors, that the small child protagonist went to visit at a zoo. Not one of Miles’ particular favorites - those were at ImpMil with him, and tended to have a lot more action - but perfectly appropriate and educational, for a child of two.

“Thanks, Ivan,” seven-year-old Gregor said, taking the book from him. “I’ll read it later, after I finish mine.”

“Book!” said Ivan, sitting down at Gregor’s feet and looking up at him expectantly. 

Gregor looked from his own book, now lying on the windowsill, to the cheerful picture book in his hands, to the toddler on the floor. He sighed.

“Alright, book,” he said. “But just a few pages. Then you can go play cats again, ok?”

“Book!” said Ivan happily.

Gregor opened the cover and started to read. The first animal was one brown bear, which had a big, shaggy coat, and was shown asleep outside a cave. He tried to hold the book so that both of them could see, but after only two pages, Ivan started craning his neck, and scrunching his face up in a way that suggested imminent vocal displeasure.

“Ok, ok,” Gregor said quickly, and scrambled off his chair to sit next to Ivan on the floor, wanting to avoid a tantrum if he possibly could. 

Crisis averted, Ivan’s earlier sunny disposition instantly returned, and he took the opportunity to scramble into Gregor’s lap. Gregor froze, briefly, and by the time his brain had caught up with his cousin, Ivan had already made himself comfortable. The nursemaid was hovering at the edges of the scene, ready to take Ivan back to the play mat if Gregor really didn’t want to deal with him, but Gregor ignored her. Ivan wasn’t screaming or smelly, at the moment, and he hadn’t been reading his own book anyway. This was fine. He reopened the book, with some difficulty, to pick up where he’d left off.

“Ai-on!” Ivan exclaimed, once Gregor had situated both of them enough that he could see the next picture. Indeed, the page showed three yellow lions, lounging on a series of rocks. Ivan must have the same book at home, Gregor thought, and waited until his little cousin was done pointing excitedly at various things on the page - “Wock! Twee! Fla-wa!” - before turning to the next one.

Outside, the rain continued to fall, but Gregor, concentrating on the animals in the zoo and the toddler in his lap, was no longer watching it.

  


* * *

  


Gregor was fourteen, and Ivan was nine. 

The two of them, and Miles and Elena, were all playing in the woods of Vorkosigan Surleau, out behind the barn. Miles, as usual, was leading, with Ivan and Elena gamely tagging along behind. Gregor, on summer leave from prep school, was bringing up the rear. He was more than a bit too old for Ambushing The Cetagandans, at this point, but a walk in the woods with no visible bodyguards was enough of a rarity to be enticing, as long as the weather was nice.

They stopped in a nearby clearing, while Miles deliberated with himself over what to do next. 

“It’s too warm for the Siege of Beluk Peak, that was in the middle of a blizzard,” he was muttering. “Maybe we could go back to Lord Vorthalia, and do the cavalry charge on the Vorhartungs - but they probably wouldn’t let us use the horses…”

The rumble of distant thunder interrupted him.

“Or we could just go inside,” Elena said, squinting off at the clouds above the far hills. “I don’t think that storm’s very far away.”

Gregor was privately coming to the same conclusion. A nice hike was one thing, but he hadn’t bargained on getting soaking wet.

Miles, however, was having none of it. 

“Rain never stopped the Dendarii Irregulars!” he said grandiosely, using his own name for the informal District forces Count Piotr had frequently relied upon during the Occupation. Gregor wasn’t sure whether the term had an actual historical basis, or whether perhaps one of Miles’ parents had fabricated one, on the grounds that “your grandfather’s favorite throatcutters” wasn’t something Cordelia Vorkosigan would voluntarily say to a six-year-old. As Gregor knew.

Elena merely sighed.

Ivan, meanwhile, was looking between Miles and Gregor. “I don’t want to play in the rain, Miles,” he said, more loudly than necessary. “It’ll get all muddy, and then my shoes will be a mess, and then Mamere will yell at me again.”

“Your mama doesn’t yell,” Miles said scornfully. “I’ve heard her scold you, loads of times. She just uses a lot of words.”

“Well, I don’t want her to scold me, either,” Ivan said stubbornly. “Besides, mud is _gross_. C’mon, Miles, let’s just go inside.” His voice had stretched out into an exaggerated whine by the end of it, travelling all over the octave in an attempt to find the most convincing - or obnoxious - pitch. 

Gregor thought this performance was a bit obvious, even for Ivan, but Miles, blinded by the mere fact of opposition, did not appear to notice.

“What if we go looking for weapons in the attic, first?” Elena suggested, before Miles could dig his own heels in. “Then we can be, um, really authentic Dendarii Irregulars, when we go back outside later!” Eyeing the darkening horizon, she was clearly hoping that “later” never came.

Ivan stopped whining immediately. “Yeah, Miles, let’s do that! There might even be scalps!”

“That sounds like fun, actually,” said Gregor, judging that at this point he might as well weigh in. It didn’t, necessarily, but at least they would be dry, and there was some chance of finding something interesting in the pile of old crates and boxes. It was unlikely there would be any actual Occupation weapons - though who knew; the Vorkosiogans apparently never threw anything away - but if they did find some, someone would have to make sure Miles didn’t fire any of them indoors. Or at all, really. Gregor had enjoyed the tank escapade the previous year, but there had been a very good reason he had insisted on taking the gunner’s position himself.

Miles usually took being outvoted as a challenge, but he never disagreed with Gregor. “Oh, _fine_ ,” he said, and turned around to lead them back in again with only a minimum of grumbling. 

The thunder followed them all the way to the attic. They clattered up the back stairs all in one go, pausing only to do the minimum necessary to wipe their feet at the rear door - the fear of god, and Cordelia, had long since been put into them regarding tracking dirt into the kitchen.

The attics themselves were the sort of dingy mess that looked like a lot of work to an adult, but an adventurous treasure hunt to a group of children. To Gregor, halfway in between, it looked less than promising, but the excitement of the others was close enough to catch.

He followed them around the eaves, prodding the various boxes and peeking into the ones that weren’t nailed shut. Most of them simply contained papers, which was disappointing to all of them. Miles was still on the hunt for weapons, but the others had broadened their horizons to include “anything other than ancient receipts,” and they were still being disappointed.

“Let’s go look in the other wing,” said Miles, after a bit. “I’m sure I saw a pike there once. That’d make for a really accurate cavalry charge!”

“It was a halberd,” said Elena. “And I don’t think the Count is going to let you use either of them on one of his horses.”

“We could sit on the horses, and carry them,” said Ivan. “Then nobody would get hurt.”

“That’s not how pikes work!” said Miles, indignantly. “No, you can carry the pike, Ivan, and be the opposing infantryman. _I’ll_ ride the horse. And Elena, can, um, use a bow, or something.”

“It’s not a -” Elena started, but Ivan cut her off.

“But what about Gregor?” he asked, by way of playing a trump card.

They all turned to look at him.

“You all go on and see what you can find, first,” Gregor said, before Miles could answer on his behalf. “Then we’ll see what we can do with it. I’ll just stay here and, um, check over this area again. For, um, safety.” 

He was actually eying a small, decorative box on a far shelf, that looked like it might be interesting. He was fairly certain it didn’t contain any Time of Isolation weapons, however, and he didn’t want to try to compete with Miles’ martial excitement to get it open.

“Great! It’s settled,” said Miles, already halfway down the passageway. “We’ll bring you back a pike!”

“It’s a _halberd_ ,” Elena muttered, as she followed him.

Ivan lingered behind. “You’re sure you don’t want to come with us?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “There’s really nothing here but papers.”

“No, you go on,” Gregor said, crossing to the box he’d had his eye on, and waving it at Ivan by way of explanation. “I want to see if I can get this open. There’s probably nothing inside, but it looks like a puzzle box, and that’ll be interesting for awhile. It’s pretty, anyway.”

“Alright,” said Ivan, who clearly didn’t find empty boxes very interesting, puzzle or not. “I’ll save you a pike if we find them. Miles will be a lot more careful not to hit me if I’m standing next to you.”

“Thanks, Ivan,” Gregor said drily. “I promise not to let Miles kill you with a horse. Or a halberd.” Mostly because he’d be making sure no armed cavalry charge took place at all, but he didn’t need to mention that just yet.

Ivan just grinned at him, and scampered off to join his agemates.

Alone again, except for the distant shrieks and arguments of his cousins and Elena, Gregor settled into the pile of threadbare cushions on the window seat, and turned his attention to the wooden box. It was a small box, only a few inches on a side, but richly decorated with different colors of wood inlay. It looked about the size to hold a signet ring, Gregor thought, which probably meant that he should put it back. It wouldn’t do to walk off with a Vorkosigan signet ring in his pocket, even an obsolete historical version. Then again, he could always put it back after he got it open...

When the rain finally caught up to the thunder, Gregor was too engrossed in the puzzle of the beautiful box’s latching mechanism to notice.

  


* * *

  


Gregor was nineteen, and Ivan was fourteen. 

They were at Vorkoisgan Surleau, again. Both of them, and Miles, were on leave from their various academies for Midsummer. It was Gregor’s last time visiting the estate as a child; he would be reporting for duty two months before his next birthday, and if and when he returned after that it would be as a full-fledged adult. Ostensibly.

It was much easier, at this age, for him to avoid joining his cousins’ games, though they were more like outdoor activities, now; Gregor wasn’t the only one who’d grown up a bit. Today, it was horseback riding, one of Miles’ perennial favorites, and generally something on which all of them could agree. Gregor had begged off this time, however. His impending majority loomed over everything, now, and he wasn’t entirely certain that if he got on a horse, he wouldn’t simply steer it into the wilderness at a full gallop. 

Instead, he’d come up to the attic. The attics of Vorkosigan Surleau were not quite on the scale of Vorkosigan House itself, with all their official historical documents and the entire ten generations of Countly detritus. Most of the District-based equivalent had been atomized with Vorkosigan Vashnoi. Even two generations of old paperwork piled up considerably, however, and Gregor was distracting himself by shuffling through some of the unsealed crates essentially at random. It was all quite mundane, really, which he supposed he should have expected. Even as children, they’d never found much of anything beyond the stacks of papers, and District management matters generally tended more towards logistics than politics. Gregor thought of the pile of reports multiplying on his desk in the Residence in his absence, on such fascinating topics as as “Topsoil Quality on the Southern Continent,” and sighed.

Behind him, from the direction of the stairs, someone cleared their throat. Gregor turned to see Ivan, still in his riding clothes, leaning uncertainly on the railing. He was holding two mugs, and what looked like a thermos.

“Is that soup?” Gregor asked, puzzled. They’d had lunch already, and it was only mid-afternoon.

“Just cocoa,” Ivan said, shrugging. “I thought about nicking one of the bottles from the top of the cellar, but one of the maids would probably have spotted me, and then I’d be down there getting a lecture. Again.”

“You’re way too young for alcohol,” said Gregor, trying for an admonishing tone, though he was more amused than appalled.

“I didn’t mean it for me,” Ivan said, unscrewing the lid of the thermos. “But then there was that big vat of cocoa on the stove, and I figured they wouldn’t mind too much if I nicked some of that. They’re going to force-feed it to Miles later, anyway, when he and Elena get done with the horses. It looks like rain outside, but you wouldn’t know it the way he’s pressing on.”

“Is that why you came in?”

Ivan took his time, juggling the mugs around and fiddling with the thermos seal. “They were noisy,” he said finally. “I thought I’d find some peace and quiet for a change. Plenty of that up here, when Miles isn’t.”

Gregor took the mug of cocoa Ivan handed him, a slight frown playing across his face. Ivan might not yell quite as loudly or frequently as Miles - if for no other reason than avoiding his mother’s disapproval - but as an athletic fourteen-year-old boy, he was generally a very close second. 

“Thanks, Ivan,” he said quietly.

Ivan met his eyes, for the first time since he’d come up to the attic. “Don’t mention it,” he said, more seriously than usual. Then he immediately broke the moment, looking exaggeratedly around at the piles of ostensibly historical Vorkosigan papers. “We’d better not drink it here, though,” he said. “It’s probably bad to spill cocoa all over the Fifth Count’s diaries, or something.”

“They’re mostly receipts for horse manure,” Gregor said, but he let himself be led away to the window seat under the eaves. It seemed smaller than before, when all four of them could fit onto it side by side. But it was wide enough for two teenagers, even now.

He and Ivan drank their cocoa, and talked about the horses, and their old summer memories, and Ivan’s equal measures of dread and impatience for his own turn at the Academy entrance exams. Gregor found his younger cousin’s excitement more nostalgic than irritating. He’d give quite a lot to have mere exams at the forefront of his own mind. He did have one more bank of finals before graduation, but any stress that thought might be causing shrank so far down, in the face of the looming end of the Regency, that he could barely feel it at all. He took refuge in his cocoa, and Ivan’s cheerful chatter, and let the distraction draw a veil over all of it, just for a bit.

They watched the rain, when it started coming down outside, but with Ivan next to him and the warmth of the cocoa in his belly, Gregor found it, for once, more soothing than soporific.

  


* * *

  


Gregor was twenty-four, and Ivan was nineteen. 

Ivan’s last year at the Imperial Service Academy was in full swing, and Ivan was generally confined to his classrooms and his dormitory, frantically trying to learn enough five-space math not to be a disgrace to his name on his finals. He mostly managed, but his good grades in Advanced Logistics and Personnel Management would have carried him through anyway.

Across town, Gregor was generally confined to his suite and his office in the Residence, trying much less frantically not to be a disgrace to his own name in Ministerial meetings. He couldn’t tell whether he managed or not, but his Prime Minister would carry him through regardless.

After his finals - and after he recovered from the hangover - Ivan sat in his dorm room for the last time. He ought to be packing up, but instead he was sitting with his feet up on his desk, twiddling a featureless black comcard between his fingers. He’d kept it in his jacket pocket ever since Gregor had given it to him two years ago, but he hadn’t used it yet. There hadn’t been any reason to: no political crises, no dodgy generals giving him strange orders in the middle of the night, not even any sudden Milesian antics. But he was done with school, now. Everything was over but the official graduation. That was the sort of occasion when people called up their cousins, wasn’t it? Even if their cousin was the Emperor.

Then again, Gregor might not appreciate the interruption. Ivan hadn’t seen him very much these past few years, between the Academy and Gregor’s increasing Imperial duties. There had been a few family events, including Gregor’s actual personal birthday celebrations. And, of course, the official Events themselves. But every time Ivan had seen his cousin, whether across the family table or the formal ballroom, Grgor had never looked pleased about it. Mostly, he’d looked like what he wanted most was for everyone to leave him alone. Ivan couldn’t make the packs of obstreperous Counts and eligible daughters go away, but he could certainly keep from adding to the problem himself. And anyway, there was no reason the family afterthought needed a cookie just for fulfilling expectations. Miles might have needed a nudge into the Academy, but there was never any question that both of them would graduate. It wasn’t that much of an occasion, really, after all.

Sighing, Ivan put the comcard back into his pocket, and got up to pack.

In the Residence, Gregor sat in his private study, desultorily thumbing through a report on “Trends in Agricultural Tariffs” from the Minister of Galactic Affairs. After awhile, he gave up on parsing its various charts and tables, and tossed it onto his desk. It landed with a less than satisfying splat, displacing the decorative inlaid box behind it a few inches. With a sigh, he swiveled his chair away from his pile of paperwork, towards the window on the opposite wall.

Outside, the rain pounded a deadening beat against the windows, as Gregor watched the gardens dissolve into indistinct grey rivulets on the security-hardened plasglass. The rest of the day, and the week, and the month, stretched before him in his mind as one more such blurry tributary, dripping down to the bottom with all the rest of them, until the whole of the larger world was completely invisible, and there was nothing left but rain.

Inside, in the corner, his comsonsole sat silent.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Dessa’s song “Children’s Work,” which Lanna Michaels put me on to as very reminiscent of Gregor, and it really is. The obvious comparison is with Gregor and Miles, except that unlike the younger brother in the song, Miles never had a problem expressing himself. Guess who did, though? And who might have had enough emotional intelligence to see past it? Gregor, and Ivan. So then I wrote this.


End file.
